Opinion: Editorial
Domestic disturbance
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For the past several years, the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents has demanded domestic partner benefits for its employees in its proposed budget. Sadly, the state Legislature has repeatedly blocked this request. But with Democrats winning control of both the state Senate and Assembly on Nov. 4, bringing domestic partner benefits to the university system must be a high priority for state lawmakers when the Legislature reconvenes in January.
In the past, opponents of domestic partnership benefits have declared these benefits as too costly. Certainly, with the dire state of the current economy and
Still, pursuing these benefits at UW is almost certainly a positive step toward fulfilling its moral obligation to unmarried staff and maintaining the quality of that staff, who are also often major breadwinners for the university. In the past five years alone, the Legislature’s unwillingness to provide these benefits for professors has contributed to the loss of faculty like Rob Carpick, former associate professor in the engineering physics department, and Lary Wu, a sociology professor. During their time at UW-Madison, both brought in nearly $6 million in external grants for the university.
As it stands, the University of Wisconsin-Madison is the only Big Ten university that does not offer domestic partner benefits or a similar program to its faculty. It’s about time — no, long past due — for the UW to catch up to its peers.
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UW loses more in grant money every year to professors who have left the university over domestic partner benefits than granting the benefits would cost in any ten years.
Unbelievable. We are facing a $5 billion budget deficit in the state, and some people still think it’s a good idea to increase benefit costs in a way that the majority of WI citizens have clearly said they don’t support. Are your minds so open that your brains have fallen out?
Based on the comment @ 4:11 it looks like Steve Nass has begun trolling the BH comments section after losing his job at the assembly.
4:11 - It’s good to know that you support equal rights only if they don’t cost you a penny. It must be nice believing that the rights you have as a member of the majority culture don’t impose a cost on someone else.
What if your HMO decided you just weren’t worth the liability\ cost for no reason at all. I suppose I’d care because they might cut my benefits too. That you don’t see your lot in life connected to the lot of others shows that you live on an Island. Once you leave Lucky you will have to face reality sometime. And someone might decide to fire you for an arbitrary reason.
Are we supposed to feel sorry for you just because you’re a member of the majority culture? No. we’ll laugh, because we’ll feel the same disconnection from you that you feel from GLBT folk. Even as a straight guy you haven’t provided a reason for us to feel compassionate about your plight. Why should honest folk care about dishonest folk like yourself? So far you haven’t given a compelling reason.
4:11 -
You and the rest of the majority of WI citizens apparently don’t know how this shit works, nor can you stop being fundie retards and see that you have no right to deny people rights just because they don’t like cock or pussy.
For years, the Doyle administration has said that they would love to do the right thing and give state employees domestic partner health care benefits, but that their hands were tied by the state legislature. Now that Steve Nass and his cronies aren’t in power any more, and we’ve got leaders in the legislature who have said that DP benefits will be a priority, all of a sudden, they’re a cost issue for the Doyle folks, not a political one. Quelle surprise!